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The Complete Clifford Jordan Strata-East Sessions (#256)

Mosaic Records Limited Edition Box Set

"Appropriately this box includes what from many perspectives was Clifford Jordan’s recorded masterwork, Glass Bead Games..this will certainly rekindle interest in and broaden consideration of Clifford Jordan’s overall career, presenting as it does some unpolished diamonds and previously unreleased gems of a late-60s/early 70s recording period that is certainly overdue for this level of retrospective consideration." - Willard Jenkins, liner notes

The explosion of creative freedom that characterized jazz in the late 1950s and 1960s was just one step in the process of musicians taking control and responsibility for their lives.

Promoting, owning and distributing their own product were other obvious results. Rent parties and private releases may have been a part of the music scene forever, but in the 1970s, on the heels of the "black power" movement, self-sufficiency started to look like a crusade. It contained elements of liberation.

Clubs unwelcoming to the new sound? Musicians countered by collectively hosting concerts themselves, giving birth to the loft jazz scene in Manhattan in spaces with sketchy occupancy credentials and even less substantial recognition from the state liquor authority. No phone call from The Newport Jazz Festival? Artists started their own independent festival in church halls, college campuses and local art centers.

Music was everywhere, and it couldn't be contained. Including on discs. And that's where Strata-East comes in, especially the recordings supervised by tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan as a tribute to Eric Dolphy.

Birth of a label.

Strata-East began as a collaboration between pianist Stanley Cowell and trumpeter Charles Tolliver, who were forced into "self-publishing" when they couldn't find a label that would issue and market their "Music Inc." album. Clifford Jordan liked what he heard and asked the team if they could press and release sessions he had made headlined by Pharoah Sanders, Charles Brackeen, Cecil Payne, Ed Blackwell, Wilbur Ware and himself on dates from 1968 and '69. The session led by Ware went unreleased until 2012, and the Blackwell session makes its first appearance here.

Mosaic's newest box set, "The Complete Clifford Jordan Strata-East Sessions," bundles them all for the first time ever. It features the 6 outstanding unreleased tracks, by Ed Blackwell with a drum ensemble and a quartet featuring Don Cherry. Collectively, the sessions are a microcosm of the jazz world in the 1970s, where the power was always on and the ideas were electrifying.

Unsurprisingly, every track is an original - there's not one standard tune in the lot.

Independence in music and in life.

At the time, the independent jazz movement was more than a search for ways to create art that was more personal, sometimes even spiritual. Musicians were testing ways to exist off the grid of the typical financial and commercial restraints that had never favored them.

Strata-East was an important part of that experiment. It left the music to the creators, giving them freedom to record whatever they wanted. The label handled distribution and promotion. It became an important outlet for musicians, established and new, to give life to what they were hearing in their hearts.

Jordan was like a super-collider of old and new: his own session includes Don Cherry, Julian Priester, Richard Davis, Wynton Kelly, Wilbur Ware and Albert Heath on one date, Kenny Dorham, Ed Blackwell, and Roy Haynes with Kelly, Ware and Davis on another.

An earlier date headlined by Cecil Payne employs Dorham, Kelly, Ware and Heath. Brackeen's set is a reunion of Ornette Coleman's band without Ornette, and features Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Blackwell. Ware used Cherry, Blackwell, and Jordan on his set.

When it was Blackwell's turn to lead, the drummer chose Cherry, Luqman Lateef on tenor saxophone, and Ware for one set, and Billy Higgins, Dennis Charles, and three musicians on log drums and percussion (one of them, Jordan himself) for a second ensemble.

A final set by Jordan recorded in 1973 produced one of the tenor saxophonist's career masterpieces. "Glass Bead Games" was released as a double album and features two quartets: Stanley Cowell, Bill Lee, and Billy Higgins and Cedar Walton, Sam Jones and Higgins..

Across the spectrum.

Given the Strata-East concept, the music ranges all over the spectrum from the soulful groove of Cecil Payne's set to the challenging incantations of Pharoah Sanders. Both the Blackwell set and Brackeen's, will sound welcome to anyone who got to know them through their important association with Ornette. They are an extension of all he did to free the music while remaining true to its roots in blues, emotionalism, and driving rhythms.

Jordan's own recordings are a delight. Having grown up in the fiercely independent jazz city of Chicago, Jordan already had a couple of dates under his belt as a leader (and frequent sideman) for Blue Note, plus discs for Riverside, Jazzland and Atlantic when he took on the mantle of nurturing these projects. Having served with such demanding leaders as Horace Silver, Max Roach and Charles Mingus, he is clearly playing with passion, agility and taste.

Since the artists owned their masters, reissues of Strata-East LPs have been extremely rare and don't stick around long. Our Mosaic Select #20 release featuring Tolliver's live quartet sold out long ago. Our more recent set (#37) featuring his original Music Inc. & Big Band Strata-East sessions, plus later recordings from 1979, are still available and a great companion to this bountiful, new Clifford Jordan collection.

Strata-East went on to release more than 50 albums in its day including the popular "Winter In America" by Gil Scott-Heron, but the masters Clifford Jordan contributed were what helped propel it into becoming an actual label. To really feel the fervor of the times, they are an essential addition to any collection.

The booklet features an excellent essay by Willard Jenkins and many previously unpublished photographs from the actual sessions by Martin Bough.

Journalist/Producer/Educator Willard Jenkins’s liner notes for the Complete Clifford Jordan Strata-East Sessions encompass the life of the unique and brilliant Clifford Jordan, the story of the noble experiment known as Strata-East Records and in-depth descriptions of the seven sessions led by Jordan, Cecil Payne, Charles Brackeen, Pharoah Sanders, Ed Blackwell and Wilbur Ware.

SOUND QUALITY

With the exception of “The Glass Bead Games” which was recorded in 1973 by Ron Carran at Minot Studios in White Plains, New York, these sessions were recorded during 1968 & ’69 at Orville O’Brien’s TownSound Studio in Englewood, New Jersey. Malcolm Addey has remastered the original analog tapes with the warmth and clarity that define his work.

The set opens with what at the time was Clifford Jordan’s eleventh date as a leader, prophetically titled Clifford Jordan in the World. Sandra Jordan reveals this as Cliff’s way of indicating clearly that this record was completely about the compositions of Clifford Jordan. Personnel for the date is an interesting blend of familiar Jordan cohorts who cross generations and separately represent varying stylistic perspectives – from the bebop early adapter drummer Roy Haynes, and trumpeter Kenny Dorham, whose playing was a bridge between bop and the advancement known variously as neo-bop, hard bop or post-bop, to bassist Wilbur Ware and pianist Wynton Kelly, both of whom arrived on the scene shortly after Dorham, in the mid-50s; to trumpeter Don Cherry, drummers Ed Blackwell and Albert “Tootie” Heath, bassist Richard Davis and trombonist Julian Priester, all of whom came on the scene in the early 60s.

Such a carefully mixed cast not only demonstrates Jordan’s gifts as a musical alchemist, it clearly represents a sort of pan-stylistic approach which serves the music well, providing additional fodder to those who suggest the best jazz is made by bands with personnel from different generations and stylistic perspectives. And don’t forget in that equation the fact that Cherry and Blackwell, as part of Ornette Coleman’s orbit were originally considered part of the jazz avant garde, as was Priester when he worked with Sun Ra, then further broadened his outlook, joining Heath in Herbie Hancock’s rangy pre-fusion sextet.

The album opener “Vienna” is an extended reminiscence of that historic music city, appropriately in waltz time. The piece bears a rather bittersweet melody that perhaps expresses some sense of Jordanian lament. The presence of two such sturdy bassists as Ware and Davis, with Ware playing arco at points, further bolsters Jordan’s tenor, giving wing to Clifford’s alluring upper register cry. Cherry’s questing trumpet quality serves this piece especially well, as does Priester’s facile trombone. “Doug’s Prelude,” written in honor of bassist Doug Watkins, is a piece bearing a slightly wistful quality, clearly a case of fond remembrance of Watkins, who passed far too prematurely in 1962 at age 28...

CUSTOMER REVIEWS

Well, sorry for my mistaken in the previous letter. I have another question:
who are so kind to write something about Luqman Lateef?
Is it your real name or ...?
greeting

About Doug's Prelude in The Complete Clifford Jordan Recordings

Dear Mister Cuscuna,
thank you for your "job" in critical jazz.
Anyway I have a question about the Doug's Prelude, a track taken from Clifford Jordan In The World (now realized on The Complete C. J. Recordings, I bought just yesterday):
Well, on it Don Cherry does'nt plays.
I hope to be in error, but I listened to it several time in order to be sure about Don Cherry.
I have another question and I wish to be able to construct it cause my poor English:
I know that in the Wilbuer Ware frontier unissued are three title, with Don Cherry, not on WILBUR WARE SUPER BASS. Tthe titles are: Sound Shine (Part 1); Dee Boo-D; Ahmed Moufavak.
Hoping to be clear in order you will be able to undertand me and, meanwhile I augur the best for Mosaic, I will send you my best regards and a great Merry Christmas
Luciano

What Can I Do To Make Your Lunch More Pleasant?

Sorry, couldn't think of a better title. When I read the little promo and examined the discography, I knew I had to have this one. My intuition served me well this time.
OK, I'm not being entirely honest with you. I listened to a bunch of it on youtube before I ordered. The Brackeen and Ware are what I sometimes wish Ornette Coleman would sound like. More cohesive and inviting of my undivided attention. Both Clifford's are great, In the World being my favorite. The Cecil Payne awakened my endorphins as opposed to agitating my adrenal gland producing a pleasant state of well-being which seems to be selling the album short. Pharoah's last track was about ten minutes too long for me, but still good and I loved the yodeling vocals from the same guy on Archie Shepp's Kwanza. The Ed Blackwell material was understandably not released before as it was not really a fully formed album, but nice to have (and his playing was also especially nice on the Brackeen and Ware).

Wilbur Ware's Super Bass satisfies Dolphy lovers who love bass.

Me again, the previous reviewer, just another thought.

Glass Bead Games

"Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire...horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy."

Woody Herman (7 CDs)

"Finally, the incredible First Herd collected in the ultimate set! The sensation of hearing every detail of "Out of this World" with Jackson's haunting bass lines, Harris & Phillips changing their solos in each take, "new" piano fills, the orchestra's collegial interpretation of Burn's genius (especially in the vocal numbers), Mosaic's remastering and Mr. Shoenberg's outstanding essay and analyses." - Customer review

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Quincy Jones (5 CDs)

"Excellent music and great big band sound. Can't take this off the CD player. Thanks for sharing, as I never knew about Q's big band music before this set." - Customer review .

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Lionel Hampton (5 CDs)

"Thank you Mosaic, you've done it again.A wonderful Five CD set. Been waiting 50 years for this set,it was worth the wait. Brilliant,brilliant,brilliant!!!!" - Customer Review

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Blue Note 75th Anniversary Portfolio

As Blue Note Records, one of the most influential and consistently cutting-edge labels in jazz, enters its 75th year, Mosaic Records is proud to assemble this commemorative portfolio of seven of its most iconic photographs of artists from the label’s classic era.